


Like a Ripple on a Stream

by JustAPassingGlance



Series: And So It Goes [2]
Category: Glee
Genre: First Meetings, M/M, New Year's Eve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-04 20:10:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3087485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAPassingGlance/pseuds/JustAPassingGlance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had been a year of not quite being good enough, but maybe also of not quite trying enough. A year of being a little too content to let life just happen around him instead of going and taking what he wanted. The new year, Adam was determined, would be different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Ripple on a Stream

_Day 1_

It had been a shit year. A year full of disappointments and being just this side of not quite good enough. Not quite good enough for any of the roles he wanted or any of the men he dated. One by one, he had watched his desires flit away to someone else, leaving him behind without a second glance. Even his family, while unwaveringly supportive, was disappointed. He could tell in the way his mum’s lips, blurred and pixilated over Skype, pinched downwards and in his dad’s too measured assurances whenever they talked about his life.

"We're not leaving you alone to sulk, Adam" Stacy and Chris had informed him when they invaded his apartment at eight in the morning on December the 31st, arms laden down with pastries and coffee and toting a garment bag between the two of them.

He hadn't been serious about spending the night in, just melodramatic. Surely his best friends should have been able to tell the difference.

"You never know with you," Chris had responded to his protest. "I still haven't quite grasped that wry British humor."

"And," Stacy had added from inside the closest where she had been hanging her dress up, "your melodramatic words become melodramatic actions when you're left alone for long enough."

Which was fair, he supposed, and with a begrudging sigh Adam had pulled a bottle of champagne out of the fridge— just a back-up, really. In case the weather had suddenly decided to gift them with a freak snow storm that would have left him unable to leave later that night. He had planning on going to the party, no matter what the evidence pointed to.— and set about making them mimosas.

* * *

It was just after ten at night when they managed to make it out of Adam's apartment, the icy air of the outdoors stealing their breaths from them, but failing to inspire more than a distant spark of sobriety. The getting ready process had taken longer than normal as they jostled each in and out of the too tiny bathroom and spent twenty minutes searching for Stacy's shoe, only to have her gigglingly reveal that it was on her foot.

"We should have just stayed in," Adam muttered as they staggered through the streets. Their arms were entwined together, pushing them all first to the left then to the right with every step they took.

Chris' foot skittered out from underneath him as he slipped across a patch of ice. "Whoopsies," he laughed as they all pitched forward, skidding forward another few feet before stopping, limbs akimbo but still upright.

"Three more blocks," the words escaped through Stacy's chattering teeth.

By the time they arrived at Jason's apartment, Adam couldn't remember if the reason he couldn't quite feel his face was from all the alcohol he had consumed or the cold.

A man he had never seen before answered the door, barely even bothering to look them over before he was lurching back towards the kitchen. Before they had gotten more than two feet through the door, another unfamiliar face, female this time, was swooping down on them, forcing glittering hats on their heads, and pressing sticky kisses to their faces.

"You must be Marie," Adam smiled, trying to discreetly rub away the lipstick stain she had inevitably left behind. "Jason told us all about you."

"And you must be," she screwed her face up in concentration, "very late. Also Adam. British hottie," she whispered in a horrible approximation of an English accent before adding, "Wot, wot, watcher."

"What?" Stacy hissed at Adam.

Adam blinked in bewilderment. Definitely Marie though, Jason had warned him (and apologized for) her British obsession.

"Come in! Come in!" Marie ushered them into the heart of the party, taking their coats from them and throwing them through the cracked bedroom door. Gripping Adam's wrist tightly, she dragged the chain of them through the apartment, snaking their way through clusters of people. Their progress was slow, between the three of them they knew someone every few steps. But at last Marie's impatience won out and with hurried apologies they were tugged through the rest of the living room and into the kitchen.

"Latecomers don't get drinks," Jason teased from where he was playing bartender. He had forgone a hat for a gaudy, gigantic pair of sunglasses proudly proclaiming HAPPY NEW YEAR and decorated on either side with tiny plastic champagne bottles.

Stacy pouted, lower lip quivering in a truly dramatic fashion. "Jaaaaason," she whined.

Jason smiled smugly. "Fine," he agreed. "But you guys are finishing off the punch." Grinning, he ladled the last of the punch into three nearly overflowing plastic cups and thrust them into their reluctant hands. Jason's punch was notorious for being strong and disgusting. Despite his best efforts, it always came out tasting more toxic than not. Over the years it had morphed into a joke; could this punch be worse than the last?

It almost always was. 

Cups cradled in their hands and noses wrinkled in distaste, they meandered back into the throng. 

In Adam’s experience, there were two types of New Year’s parties; either everyone was single or everyone was in a couple and it was always painfully awkward if you weren’t in the majority. It was immediately obvious that this was definitely a couple’s party. Everyone was already—with an hour still to go until midnight—clinging to their partner or else eyeing them across the room, tracking each other as they moved from group to group and making sickeningly loving eyes at each other.

He mingled among the couples, catching up with the lives of friends he hadn’t seen in a few months and meeting new people. He offered congratulations to everyone on all their successes of the past year and did not grimace as person after person promised him that the next year would be his. As the clock ticked away, he made his way back to the kitchen twice. Jason had long since abandoned the bar, so Adam mixed himself his own drinks (not too strong, he had had more than enough to drink that day. Just a little something to maintain his cheer until it was acceptable for him to slink off home.)

Final drink of the night in hand, he made his way back through the crowd, looking for Stacy and Chris, both of whom had promised him cheek-kisses when the clock struck twelve.

Off to the back left corner Todd had done something to catch everyone’s attention. Todd, man number three on the list of people he wasn’t quite good enough for. At least that had been the most short-lived of all his failed relationships, and the least disappointing when it had ended.

Whipping his head away, his eyes looked for something else to settle on. Or they tried to, the movement was too fast and too sudden and all the alcohol he had drank that day left him too unbalanced and sent him in a careening stagger into the arms of a very handsome almost-stranger.

“Sorry about that.” Slowly, he straightened himself up but kept a firm clutch on the other man’s shoulder to keep the room from spinning. He could feel the heat of the man’s arm low and steadying on his back. “You’re Sebastian, yes? Jason’s friend that plays lacrosse? He dragged me to a few of your games. No bloody clue what was happening, but you were good.” He took a deep breath, aware of how quickly his words were falling from his mouth. “I’m Adam, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, Adam.” The man’s eyebrow quirked and his lips curled up in amusement.

Adam’s heart speed up in his chest. Sebastian’s eyes, he was sure, flickered up and down his body and the semi-embrace was tightened. A thumb (maybe? Or would that have been higher?) made three abortive sweeps over muscles tensed and twitching in something that could have been anticipation.

From over Sebastian’s shoulder, Stacy stopped whispering into Chris’s ear, grinned at Adam, and shot him a double thumbs up.

It had been a shit year. A year of not quite being good enough but maybe also of not quite trying enough. A year of being a little too content to let life just happen around him instead of going and taking what he wanted. He could have hunted down more roles and not been so quick to take ‘no’ for an answer. Could have done more in order to be more, or whatever it was his maths teacher had always quipped at them. 

“Four, three, two, one,” he whispered along with the garbled chanting of the party. At zero he rocked forward and pressed his lips firmly against Sebastian’s.

Sebastian laughed in the back of his throat and kissed back, his other hand coming up to rest of Adam’s bicep.

“Steady on, sailor,” Sebastian teased because Adam’s world was spinning again, this time from Sebastian’s lips, leaving him breathless in their wake.

Adam blinked the world back into focus. To his left and right couples chattered around him. Anticlimactic for a New Years.

“And,” Sebastian twisted his arm to look at his watch, “there’s still about nine minutes 'til midnight.”

“Oh my god.” Adam buried his face in Sebastian’s shoulder, the cotton of the sweater tickling uncomfortably against nose. “Well this is mortifying. I’d like it very much if we could both pretend this never happened.”

“Mmm,” hummed Sebastian. “I wouldn’t.” And then his hand was cupping Adam’s chin and angling his head back for another kiss.  


End file.
